in preparedness we think about every possible disaster that we can think of but the truth is the more devastating the disaster the less likely it is and I don't mean to say that we can afford to turn a blind eye to some of these larger disasters because while they might be unlikely the consequences could be enormous in my opinion it's more important to prepare for emergencies that hit a whole lot closer to home and can happen at any given time and one of the first things that we should do is prepare for power outages and
because of that what I want to talk about today is putting together a lights out kit and a kit like this would be for say you are not home but the kids or the family members are and they don't know exactly where everything is like you do something like this is also easy to grab if you need to evacuate or bug out and also it keeps everything organized in one place some of the things in this kit today are just in there not solely for a a blackout type situation but because I want to keep
them organized and I don't want to lose them so with that let's go ahead and get into what I put together here and the first part is this toolbox right here and this toolbox I got this is a Husky toolbox I got this on Amazon I believe this is 2 feet long and about 9 in wide the usable space in here is a couple inches less than that so you've got 22 in that you can use now with a kit like this you can use whatever box that you want to it doesn't have to be
this one this is just the one I chose and I'll go through why but you can use storage containers you can use smaller toolboxes whatever you think you need and whatever you think you can afford to just fit everything that you can in here you can do that however you want this is just the way I did this box right here now the reason I wanted this long toolbox right here is because wanted to be able to put this battery in right here on the side and still have room for the other things that I
put in here so uh that's why I chose this long one you can choose whatever you want and this battery is really simple to plug in uh basically it's just positive and negative I got this little unit right here which is got an on and off switch it's got two USBS and it also tells you what the charge of the battery is and you've got a cigarette lighter Port right here this I bought on Amazon and it comes pre-wired all of these are connected and pre-wired so there's really nothing you have to do other than
plug them into the battery right there and then I've got this charging port right here that I put on here just to be able to charge it from an AC outlet not something that you could do in a power or when the power's out but you could use a charger like this to charge this little unit right here and this just plugs in into that thing over here now a better option if you don't want to go this route another option could be just a power station a little micro Power Station like this Bogue RV
right here this bog RV is a great little power station this is 240 wat hours and it outputs a a total of 4 10 watts so you can use this and it's also got an AC port over here on this side so if you need to power something that's AC something like this would be great with this battery right here you would need to plug the cigarette lighter port in and use it that way but this Bogue RV is a great little power unit and it's basically the same thing as this battery right here but
it's a great little power unit and it's got you can charge it by USBC so you can charge this via solar as well so there's a lot of different options with this and you can even get a charger that fits into this slot right here but there are a lot of different options for this and this is something that I don't necessarily keep in here all the time because I use it in my truck we use it around the house and I have this battery right here but it is something fantastic that you could put
in here that would give you the same thing as this a little bit of AC power and a lot of you know for the your phones and electronics and things like that a lot of power for those but this is this bog RV juice go is a really cool little product I I like this a lot I use this quite a bit not just in this kit right here and another thing about this juiceco that's pretty cool is you can I've got a solar panel in here this is just a 20 wat solar panel and
it's something that you can charge this it can charge whatever else you have in there and it you can just use it via USB or USB type c which is a really good option to have so this will charge you know probably 20 watts 10 to 20 watts probably 10 watts uh during the day so you can set this outside with that bog RV and recharge that or your smaller power or your smaller power packs or things like that so I also have a solar panel in here as well along with the bog RV so
these are the two main power sources for this unit but you also need other light that is probably the most important thing with this kit because if the power goes out you want to have something in one spot where everyone knows where it is where they can just grab a flashlight and get everything else going whether you're talking about glow sticks like I have in here uh a couple of headlamps which I think are Priceless because you can put these on and walk around the house do whatever you need to do but make sure that
you have light sources in here I've even got this little uh cheap little flashlight like that Lisa got me a sort of a gag but I figured it's flat and you know you got to keep the button held down but I figured this was kind of cool to have so I threw it in here and even another flashlight you can put as many or as little as you want In Here Also as far as light sources in here I've got a couple of other things and I've got the Lucy Lantern which is sort of an
interesting product this Lucy Lantern it doesn't have a way to charge it other than solar so if it sits in here for a while you're going to have to take it outside and charge it but with all the other options you have you could take this outside and charge it just a cool little collapsible light right here it doesn't put off huge amounts of light but it's pretty good and I've also got this on light right here which is a pretty neat USB light so you could take out this light right here plug it into
the USB port on this little power station or even your your small smaller power stations and it turns on right there so that would give you a light it's got a pretty long cord right here uh so that's that's pretty neat as well I figure uh this is one that yes it would be useful in here but two I don't want to lose it so that's why it goes in this kit as well and a few other power options that I have I've got uh this right here which has got a bunch of batteries in
it and I've also got a small little power pack because this power pack could be used for cell phones for small devices Kindle readers tablets things like that again you just plug it right in here to that USBC or USB and you'll you can charge this back up and I also have batteries in here that might be necessary for a number of different things I've got regular batteries and I've got rechargeable batteries and with these rechargeable batteries I also have a charger right here I've got a couple of different Chargers but I've got this charger
right here this xtar vc4 that you can plug in and recharge these batteries using this power station right here and I've also got this small little charger right here not the greatest charger in the world but you can plug this into this USB port and you can see that's charging right there and I'm sure that will turn green these are pretty full uh that'll turn green once it's done so you've got a couple of different ways if you just need to charge a couple of small batteries you can use this or you can use this
xar vc4 to charge a number of different batteries if you have 18650s or some of the larger ones uh you can charge recharge those in here as well so a lot of batteries and different ways to charge them and I've also got different cords these batteries are for that headlamp but I've got a number of different cords for every device device that might be used so I've got a USB type-c I've got a USB uh USB micro this is the cord for this right here I've got an apple lightning cable for charging phones USBC to
USBC if I need to charge this right here so all these different cords you know just because you're not sure what somebody's going to be charging are nice and useful to have in here and I've got these all over the house so I figure why not uh you know put a few in here that way I don't lose them if I ever need them so that is all the different power options that I have and the light options that I have you've got the glow sticks right here as well uh these work fairly decent these
are kind of a you know why not have them in here kind of fun for the kids as well and then speaking of fun you've also got to have some sort of entertainment in here because it can get pretty boring in this kit right here I have a couple of different card games I've got the urban survival cards which are kind of neat and if you don't want to freak everyone out in a disaster or an emergency type situation also got the clue right here which is a fun little game you've got books and and
even board games that if you have those in your closet once you get everything set up where you can actually see what you're doing you can grab those board games and even with this I've got this little light right here which is pretty neat and what this light does so if you had this uh Little Lights Out kit on the table you could plug this light in right here and have a little bit of light that way you can play your games or read whatever you need to read and do whatever you need to do
so also have a little bit of entertainment a little bit of light right here so having entertainment items when it is a blackout whether you're talking something shortterm or longterm I think is really important because it gets awful boring and if you have teenagers basically they're just going to be sitting there looking for stuff to do and the more you give them to do the less trouble they can get into so uh having some of that stuff I think is important to have in a kit as well now a couple miscellaneous things I have in
this kit right here I've got a a multi-tool right there you just never know when that might be useful screwdrivers and things like that I've got a pocket knife in here this is a civi I believe it's called it's a little cheap actually they're pretty good knives they're pretty inexpensive made in but they are actually pretty decent knives and then I've got a a Sharpie right here and a lighter right here I don't want to have too many fire sources cuz if you're not home and the kids are uh that could be a recipe for
a disaster uh and they probably shouldn't need to you know have any open Flames or anything like that so I've got this set up in here like that and I've also got an emergency radio in here and this sort of goes along with entertainment uh it can be you know you you can use the radio to you know turn the radio on with this and just get a little bit of information as long as as long as that information is available you'd be doing pretty good but you can also this has also got the NOAA
radio which will give you some information about what's going on if the you know if it's a really big event or if it's just something that's localized this will give you information that you may not be able to get from anywhere else so this is a really cool radio right here this is got a hand crank option on the side you've got a a couple of power options in the back here you've got your doublea batteries right here that it can use or you've got this one right here which is rechargeable that the hand crank
that's what the stores the energy from the hand crank and also you can use the USB to charge other things so this doesn't hold a whole lot of energy but if you needed to get just a little bit of power into your phone for one reason or another you could do that with this uh it's got a couple of different lights on it and a solar panel on top as well so one of the most important parts of a kit is your emergency radio I think and also in here you want to make sure gathering
information and having important documents is also important uh it's important that you have instructions what I like to do when the kids used to live here I had instructions in here about how to use the generator because I know how to do that but other people may not so what the procedures are for this and I've got the safety procedures and all that you've also got important contact information these are just cards you could print offline there's a lot of different ones you could put instructions in here safety procedures not to use open Flames where
the first a kits are uh how to use different supplies that you have say you have a Buddy Heater it's in the middle of the winter the proper way to use that so all that information that while they're sitting there doing nothing they can use this little light right here look at all this information and sort of get a better understanding and even feel better about the situation that's going on so uh having a folder in here with all the things that you think might be important uh is is great to have as well as
in this kit I've got a flash drive that's got a bunch of different documents on it about what to do in power outages and you know some things that I've saved that go into longer term power outages this flash drive right here has got the USB and it's also got the type-c right here so you can access this uh on a laptop or whatever you have that has this type of plugin so you don't necessarily want to depend on something that's going to take electricity but again you can store a whole lot more in here
than you can in here and it's always good to have because you never know what's possible and how long something is going to go go on so that's basically everything I have in my kit right here again it's really up to you how you put this together there is no one certain way to do this it really depends on what size of box you want to use and what different supplies you have and what you want to store in here but I think it is important to have one of these just set up so if
something happens it's pitch dark you know exactly where this is you can go to a closet or wherever you have this stored grab it really quickly and it's got all the different things that you might need to get a little bit further in that that blackout situation and allows you to get things done a little easier having this power station having this battery having a bunch of different lights all in one spot um makes it easier as you're trying to navigate that situation so I think it is important to have all of these supplies whether
you're using a bin or whatever you're using I think it's important to have a lot of these in one spot where somebody can just grab it and they're good to go with that I am done here today everyone if you've got any ideas or any thoughts what you would add to a kit or if you've made one yourself leave a comment below and let me and everyone else know give them some ideas but with that I am done today take care and prepare everyone we will talk to you all later
